BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

Part Two of a Series

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY FEB. 7, 2018) — In considering the Administration’s request to further plunge the city’s indebtedness by a mere $80 million, it’s important to note how mayor Linda Tyer first attempted to scuttle a proper procedural process.

Prior to the negative recommendation of the city council’s finance committee — our Right Honorable Goods Friends wisely voting 3-2 that the full council reject the plan — Tyer asked that her co-governors waive the required hearing. Council rules require — REQUIRE — a referral to committee on any Administration request to spend $75,000 or more, a measure installed after mayor Gerry Doyle rammed through, and his stacked council approved, a $250,000, 11th-hour request for EV Worldwide. You remember the blaring headlines in The BoringBroadsheet boasting the 1,000 jobs that never materialized, and while we’re at it, just how many electric vehicles did the company produce? THE PLANET lost count.

Tyer wanted the council to skip the referral. In her calculus, what’s borrowing almost $80 million more, a sum that will increase Pittsfield’s indebtedness to a staggering $425 million, not counting a nearly equal amount for post-employment benefits bedraggled taxpayers owe for city retirees. That the mayor sought to violate due process put in place to help ensure a more reasonable deliberation on large expenditures reveals much about the intentions behind this poorly explained plan. She sought to shush deliberation. Not good. Why? Because she knows the plan is flawed.

The mayor didn’t want proper debate, deliberation, or discussion, revealing her defensiveness and ultimate lack of belief in the ill-conceived plan to upgrade the city’s water and sewer treatment plant. Instead, she asked the council to waive the mandatory referral and take immediate action. This strongly suggest an even more odious probability, that the council’s votes for this wasteful expenditure have been worked out in advance. That would be in violation of the law, not that criminal activity has ever stopped action desired by The Suits.

Could that explain the council’s unanimous decision to ignore the mayor’s request to waive the referral — that is, she knows in advance how the ultimate votewill turn out. The mayor’s friendly enablers on the council led by Peter Marchetti, the ones she thinks she has in her skirt pockets, would then get to enjoy the window dressing of democracy, safe in the knowledge that even a negative vote from the subcommittee won’t ultimately make a difference.

This might have been the rumored sneaky “compromise” (echoing in city hall) reached by Tyer and Marchetti, who chairs the finance committee and was worried about “how it would look” if his colleagues didn’t refer the mayor’s measure to committee. Under this scenario, the “friendly” councilors would have “known” that the committee decision would be split and close — 3-2 to recommend rejecting the plan, with Chris Connell, Kevin Morandi, and Melissa Morandi on the “3,” Marchetti and Earl Persip on the “2.” Simply put, both the mayor and her council chums would rest easy, knowing that while they could enjoy the technicality of committee review, they could and most likely will pass the foolish measure. So much for transparency.

Politics can be so reptilian, especially when it compromises the very people who have a constitutional responsibility to act wisely in their fiduciary roles on behalf of ordinary citizens.

So does Tyer have the votes on the full council to ram this bad idea through, one that would vault Pittsfield’s indebtedness to nearly $900 million at a time when the tax base is shrinking and administration after administration keeps increasing spending, most of it going for pay and benefit hikes for the 1,200+ employees in the city’s failing public schools? The answer will go a long way in determining the city’s prospects both in the short and long term.

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We need to start by cutting school budget by 4 million and a teacher contract freeze of wages till this is done also a hiring freeze for 3 years.Find out why a Crosby school coordinator does not work in the summer or vacations…..hes paid 1500 per week to be there…make people do their job….dam it…Show up to work

McCandless needs to tell the school committee why the Crosby community coordinator does not work during summer vacations or any other vacation….February’s vacation is coming and he needs to show up to work.Why does Behnke allow no show jobs in the school department…we want answers

Finance Director Matt Kerwood expects costs for employees insurance to rise 11%. It is time to push back on this,and put more percentage on the employees, like,the rest of the Country. As for input on plastic bag ban, this should be a State Law, not individual towns. IMO.

Elderly and handicapped residents of south county need plastic grocery bags to shop and dispose of garbage…They are not strong enough to use large plastic garbage bags. They ask me every day to save them a bag from my shopping trips. To ban these bags is shameful because they hurt the lower class. Make it a choice to use not a ban to use. Think of the way your decisions hurt others.
The elderly and handicapped will be the ones hurt by such a ban.
Just because you are not elderly or handicapped gives you no right
to punish those who are elderly or handicapped. Someday you may
be low income, elderly or handicapped. In time it happens to us all.

“Attached please find a classified memorandum related to certain communications between Christopher Steele and multiple U.S. news outlets regarding the so-called “Trump dossier” that Mr.Steele compiled on behalf of Fusion GPS for the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee and also provided to the FBI.

“Based on the information contained therein, we are respectfully referring Mr. Steele to you for investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001, for statements the Committee has reason to believe Mr. Steele made regarding his distribution of information contained in the dossier.”

Tell ya what, just start indicting people on this, another special prosecutor or not.

We’ve got an alleged crime related to the 2016 election and Russia–on the Clinton [Obama] side.

What you got, Bob?

18 U.S. Code § 1001 – Statements or entries generally

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—

(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;

(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or

(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;

shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.

For some their employees have children that they do not have a daycare backup in place for them and the business may not have the staff to cover. Another reason may be the safety of the employees and the customers. No business owner wants the close the business down but some value safety over profit. It is their business and their call, I don’t see how another can judge when they do not know the exact position the business owner is in. Hopefully you were not inconvenienced too much and will return to the business again.

So, pay any amount to the consultant and quadriple our water rates. Stay tuned at the Public Works Meeting Monday Night, it should get interesting on the hees of ge Planet’s piexe todayand just as important is the City Council and Gaetani’s expertise at what seems to be free of charge, why not have hi on board? hope the former Builder of the Plant speaks for more than three Minutes at Public Works the man has so much knowledge, we should utilize his expertise, or do we let Tyer and Marchetti run roughshod over ways to minmize cost and find ways to to reduce cost and Government regulations and requirements, when there doesn’t seem to be a need for a drastic changeover.

I want Valenti Investigating with prose, the nonsense of this project,and we need the expertise of Connell, Gaetani and maybe a Lawyer going forward. Who wouldn’t utilize an attorney or the Bulider of the Plant! We have at least five people on the Council who seem to know something about rush jobs and greasing squeaky wheels.

Gaetani is out to prove all the naysayers wrong by giving the taxpayer free info and knowledge that he has in his brain for the last 40 plus years,let’s get on board. It really will be like Popcorn (Tyred Team) against the Battleship (Gaetani)

Pittsfielld has been interacting on a regular basis with the EPA? This Plant upgrade is like someone Buying a Home without a down payment,bad credit and no loan, good luck.Who hired Turocy anyway, he knows as much about water as I do.

School employee make 75k and does not work .I believe community school coordinators shoud go to work…..this guy get away with money for nothing …..behnke is a friend and it ok…….all involved should be fired…..yon needs to publicly ask why he does not work all day during summer…..he works another job and get paid from both for the same 8 hoursj

I remember Camp Russell had a little store where we could buy candy and stuff, they also sold some weird kind of rubber string that you could make a necklace out of, anyone remember what they called it? Gimp, Gemp?Something like that.

This snow and ice on the sidewalk problem is a good opportunity for the city to hammer down on those elderly folk…who have been getting away with far too much in this city. They need to be paying their taxes and getting out and chopping that ice off the sidewalks. While it may be a bit harder to do if you are supported with a walker it can be done with a bit of patience and determination. If elderly people want to live in a fine community like Pittsfield, Ma they need to step it up or move on down the road.

I was told by someone who used to drive a city plow many years ago, that they weren’t to plow over a certain MPH so as not to push snow / slush onto sidewalks, etc. They were also instructed to lift the blade slightly to avoid pushing snow onto hydrants. Sidewalks, driveways, and a hydrant on my street were covered with slush overnight…that was froze this morning.

Procedure going forward should be retracted on all phases of the current ongoings, the water project should, or be driven by fear and shame on C C,who appropriate the initial money for the consultantants.The other night we heard problems before now and after, we should proceed with savings on the minds of the taxpayers, keeping them in MIND.The former Builder and inventor of his own design said we can save millions. Let’s not let the current Mayor or anyone else in this Administration have the last say, let the taxpayer have it. Find solutions with the current players involved for and only for the taxpayer, NOT VOTER, use all Professional Help we can get, including the knowledge of of the Builder, the City Councilors, that understand what this mega project will do to the Citizens and any other resource we can reach out to, including our Congress,an Neal. As Dan has printed here, there’s something rotten in Denmark.

I see the city sent out the census….with a return envelope…but no return postage. My guess is that at LEAST 25% of the people who were iffy about sending it back in the first place are not going to do a stamp.
So what projected accuracy were they shooting for when they decided to save money on the postage? If I remember what happens is that if you do not reply they send someone to your home to re check. So is that cost effective? I doubt it.

It seem that the mad scientist has all of the players at the Finance and soon to be Public Works Committee by the financial lemons, amd political careers in the balance,the Mayor looks foolish, the City Council, looks foolish, but is coming around, the former Commisioner and current one look foolish, and of course this time around the taxpayers will be looking foolish.I know zero about water and have been watching the water expert, it is very interesting to note that the four times the current bill cost was actually not brought up into real dollars the other night, so we’ll take Councilor Connell’s word on it. Going forward, let’s hope that presentations, especially the ones with math and numbers on them can be seen by the naked eye, do you really want to believe everything they tell us instead of visually eye it, and don’t leave info in the car.

School employees must go to work,must not double dip and some need auditing like the Crosby school administrator….75k….lets find out whats going on with him…Mrs Yon needs to speak with Mccandless about him